Mexican Workers and the Making of Arizona

MEXICAN WORKERS AND THE MAKING OF ARIZONA Edited by LUIS F. B. PLASCENCIA and GLORIA H. CUÁDRAZ MEXICAN WORKERS AND THE MAKING OF ARIZONA ★ e University of Arizona Press www .uapress .arizona .edu © e Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved. Published ISBN-: ---- (cloth) Cover design by Leigh McDonald Cover photo by Philip Decker, courtesy of the Philip Decker Photographs, Arizona Collection, Arizona State University Libraries Publication of this book is made possible in part by funding from the Center for Critical Inquiry and Cultural Studies at Arizona State University, and by the proceeds of a permanent endowment created with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Plascencia, Luis F. B., editor. | Cuádraz, Gloria, editor. Title: Mexican workers and the making of Arizona / edited by Luis F. B. Plascencia and Gloria H. Cuádraz. Description: Tucson : e University of Arizona Press, | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identiers: LCCN | ISBN (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Foreign workers, Mexican—Arizona—Social conditions. | Foreign workers, Mexican— Arizona—Economic conditions. | Foreign workers, Mexican—Arizona—History. Classication: LCC HD.M M | DDC ./—dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ Printed in the United States of America ♾ is paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z.- (Permanence of Paper). Dedicated to F. Arturo Rosales Beloved historian and scholar of Arizona’s Chicana/o history And in honor of Arizona’s Mexican people and their struggles to improve their lives ★ CONTENTS Prologue: Contextualizing Mexican Labor and Arizona’s National Importance 3 Introduction: Arizona’s Six Cs and Mexicana/o Labor 23 1. Lost Land and México Lindo: Origins of Mexicans in Arizona’s Salt River Valley, 1865– 1910 61 Jaime R. Águila and F. Arturo Rosales 2. The Mobilization and Immobilization of “Legally Imported Aliens”: Cotton in the Salt River Valley, 1917– 1921 90 Gloria H. Cuádraz 3. “Get Us Our Privilege of Bringing in Mexican Labor”: Recruitment and Desire for Mexican Labor in Arizona, 1917– 2017 124 Luis F. B. Plascencia PHOTO ESSAY 179 4. Mexicano Miners, Dual Wage, and the Pursuit of Wage Equality in Miami, Arizona 203 Christine Marin and Luis F. B. Plascencia 5. Mexican American Women Workers in Mid- Twentieth- Century Phoenix 227 Jean Reynolds VIII ★ CONTENTS 6. The Morenci Miners Women’s Auxiliary during the Great Arizona Copper Strike, 1983– 1986 248 Anna Ochoa O’Leary 7. Constructing Arizona: The Lives and Labor of Mexicans in the Valley of the Sun 270 Cristina Gallardo- Sanidad Epilogue Acknowledgments References Contributors Index MEXICAN WORKERS AND THE MAKING OF ARIZONA MAP 1 Map of Arizona. Courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society PROLOGUE ★ Contextualizing Mexican Labor and Arizona’s National Importance us in the face of the greatest demand for labor the world has ever seen, with the country at the highest point of prosperity it has ever known, the cotton growers of the Salt River Valley maintained as perfectly an elastic supply of labor as the world has ever seen and maintained an even low level of prices for wages throughout its territory. Outsiders looked, studied, and went away amazed at the accomplishment of such an organization. ANONYMOUS ARIZONA COTTON GROWERS ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVE ON ANY GIVEN DAY IN ARIZONA, residents encounter a common circumstance. ou- sands of workers of Mexican descent labor each day to make our lives possible in urban and rural areas. e majority of such workers are largely invisible. eir work as child caretakers, dishwashers or cooks in restaurants, hotel housekeeping sta, caretakers of the elderly, and in many other settings, remains in the shadows of an economy dependent on their labor. eir presence and labor sustain conveniences and con- sumer prices we have grown accustomed to, as well as key economic activities that benet the state economy. To visit Yuma in the winter for the harvesting of lettuce or a Home Depot in the suburbs, to drive by a new residential construction area, or to see the myriad landscapers as one drives through residential areas, one sees Mexican- descent workers performing numerous work activities. Mexican-origin workers, both invisible and visible, whether in public or private spheres, are essential to our standard of living. Paradoxically, however, both historically and contemporarily, Mexican workers occupy a space where employers classify them as a needed low- wage “elastic supply of labor” because, on the one hand, U.S. workers are allegedly not available, and, on the other hand, segments of the public perceive them as an unwanted foreign group harming the economy and society. is anthology aims to expand our understanding of this paradox. e uncertain future status and well-being of Mexican households in Arizona under the Trump administration augments the importance of understanding the 4 ★ PROLOGUE aforementioned paradox. Eorts to encourage the deportation of individuals subject to removal, build an eighteen- to thirty- foot border wall on the Mexico- U.S. boundary, greatly shrink access to medical care for low-income households, and reduce protective labor and environmental regulations aecting workers can be labeled “solutions” by those with an incomplete or limited understanding of the history of the region or the nation. Reality, however, is more complex. A salient constraint to all concocted solutions, from the Reagan administration to the current administration, is the second part of the paradox: historically, the U.S. economy has actively fostered the recruitment of, and benetted from, a low-wage elastic supply of labor composed of Mexicanas/os. It is easy to promote a populist or nativist interpretation of migration and migrants and to call for creating jobs for “Americans” (a coded term for white U.S. nationals). It is another matter to actually transform all economic activities sustained by undocumented workers or foreign contract workers who are granted employment-based visas precisely because employers, such as e Trump Organization, attest they cannot nd U.S. workers. As discussed in chapter , Arizona elected ocials and employers sustained a “labor shortage” argument for over a century— to the present. President Trump has for several years relied on H-A (temporary agricultural workers) for his two- hundred- acre Trump Winery in Virginia, and H- B (temporary nonagricultural workers) for the operation of his exclusive Mar-a-Lago Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. He also has utilized undocumented workers for construction projects—a violation of the employer sanctions provision enacted by President Reagan. e premise of using such labor is that “American” workers are not available—or more correctly but not acknowledged—are not available under the wages, working conditions, and production levels demanded. To date, neither President Trump nor e Trump Organization have announced that they will Make America Great Again and create jobs for “Americans” by replacing all contract workers at Trump properties with U.S. workers or publicly pledged to no longer use undocumented workers directly or indirectly (i.e., subcontracting) in all future construction projects in the United States. Such a change does not require a presidential executive order or Congressional action— it can easily be made on any day chosen by the president. It is ironic that among the easiest actions that President Trump could take to model how U.S. employers could create jobs for U.S. workers is one that he has not taken. Presumably Trump does not want to forego the capital accumulation made possible by undocumented and contract workers. is suggests that the touted concepts of “economic nationalism” and Make America Great Again may seem appealing on the surface, but instead may be oating signiers deployed to foster the perception that he seeks a populist public policy. e unnamed representative of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association (ACGA), who in the early s made the statement noted in the epigraph, indexes an important PROLOGUE ★ 5 employer-worker dynamic that is not limited to the hand harvesting of cotton. ere are two critical dimensions in the dynamic. First, that the ACGA was able to advan- tageously regulate the volume of workers needed to meet estimated labor needs in cotton plantations in Arizona— even when estimates were inated. In other words, the ACGA was able to recruit what it estimated were the appropriate number of needed and surplus workers, and then terminate their employment when no longer needed. Chapter discusses the presence of this process in the boom-bust period at the end of World War I. Second, that cotton planters collectively imposed low wages on workers recruited. e concept of low-wage elastic labor supply provides a framework for understanding the historiography of Mexicana/o labor in Arizona and beyond. We also argue that the process is evident in the contemporary period in Arizona. Arizona’s own importance to the nation is also paradoxical. Since the early s, Arizona has been at the center of media coverage. International and national media allocated much time and space to covering events and people in Arizona. News media covered a long list of stories such as Governor Napolitano’s enactment of the state’s employer sanctions law; Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign; the enactment of Arizona’s SB in ; the Tucson shooting that killed six individuals, including a federal judge, and injured U.S. Representative Gabrielle Gif- fords and eighteen other persons; the racial proling lawsuit against Sheri Joseph M. Arpaio; and the more recent asco in the March primary presidential election, particularly in Maricopa County, where Democrats alleged multiple irregularities sur- faced that disenfranchised “minority” voters. Despite the international and national attention, Arizona’s prominence and historical importance to the economic growth of the West and the nation, and its role in shaping the national political discourse are commonly overlooked in contemporary media accounts.

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